Okay, shots. We talk a lot about shots because, well, shots lead to goals. Obviously you can't have a goal without first attempting a shot. I know that was a deep thought, but just go with me here.
We put a lot of emphasis on shots here and have dug into their expectation leading to goals. It's backed by the belief that shots are important statistics in correlation to team success. Now there are plenty of caveats to shots and we use them to influence our ideas of what is good or bad. Matthias has taken time to explain at least some of them.

So with all that said you can't read too much into all of these numbers. Take for instance the fact that Frederico Higuian creates 7.03 shots per 90 minutes. That's nearly a shot and a quarter more than Brad Davis at 5.79. Is Higuian a better shot creator because he creates one additional shot over the course of a single match? If that shot is from zone 4 or even 5, the value of that single shot becomes marginalized in that specific instance.

Despite all of those various acknowledgements of how this is marginally interesting, and yet mostly a useless exercise, I put together a follow-up of last week's top 50 individual shots creators in Major League Soccer. I decided it was best to cut up this data and present it via a tiered system to make it a bit more palatable and to highlight the players that have set themselves apart from their peers. Also, this allows me to be a bit creative in the tier process.

IBC Root Beer Tier - "The Best of the Best."

Player

Club

POS

MINS

G

A

SHTS

Key Passes

Sh-C

Sh-C p90

1

Marco Di Vaio

MTL

F

326

1

1

24

4

29

8.01

2

Clint Dempsey

SEA

M

393

6

3

23

7

33

7.56

3

Federico Higuain

CLB

F

538

4

2

20

20

42

7.03

4

Robbie Keane

LA

F

450

4

1

22

12

35

7.00

5

Pedro Morales

VAN

M

472

1

2

19

15

36

6.86

6

Thierry Henry

NY

F

449

2

0

23

9

32

6.41

Oh, yeah... Marco Di Viao. He's also pretty good at this whole soccer thing. I guess we can all say that we could have guessed every singl--what the hell is Pedro Morales doing in there??? I guess that probably explains a lot about what's been happening in Vancouver. He's second overall in total Shots Created and he could very well be a shoo-in for MLS Newcomer of the Year. He's like the offensive equivalent of what Jose Goncalves was last year to New England. I only have one question: who is this Camilo guy everyone was talking about?

Justin Mapp has the sameamount of total Shots Created as Mauro Diaz in almost 20 minutes less field time. Try thinking about that next time you're frustrated by Mapp's hair line. Try.

Dom Dwyer does not go away. This guy could be someone that we may need to start legitimately talking about in the coming weeks. You should probably add Leo Fernandez and Lloyd Sam to that obnoxious hype list too.

Speaking of Sam, I added him to my MLS Fantasy Roster for tonight, hedging the bet that he finally scores a goal. At last look, the guy currently holds the highest xGoal predictor score without actually scoring a goal. If there was ever a guy that was "due" to score a goal, it's him and I'm virtually betting on it happening.

On the note of not scoring goals, "Hi, Landon Donovan". Who, in case you didn't notice, is still a good player even when not putting the ball in the back of the net. Because, you know, skillz.

Barqs Root Beer Tier - "Old Reliable"

Player

Club

POS

MINS

G

A

SHTS

Key Passes

Sh-C

Sh-C p90

31

Dwayne De Rosario

TOR

M

254

0

0

10

1

11

3.90

32

Mauro Rosales

CHV

M

626

0

3

10

14

27

3.88

33

Kenny Miller

VAN

F

537

3

1

14

8

23

3.85

34

Bradley Wright-Phillips

NY

F

358

1

0

12

3

15

3.77

35

Darren Mattocks

VAN

F

580

2

3

13

8

24

3.72

36

Jack McInerney

MTL

F

436

2

1

13

4

18

3.72

37

Will Bruin

HOU

F

539

3

1

14

7

22

3.67

38

Baggio Husidic

LA

M

344

1

1

7

6

14

3.66

39

Bernardo Anor

CLB

M

497

2

0

16

4

20

3.62

40

Hector Jimenez

CLB

M

523

1

2

9

10

21

3.61

41

Teal Bunbury

NE

F

630

0

1

14

10

25

3.57

42

Diego Fagundez

NE

M-F

584

0

0

19

4

23

3.54

43

Sal Zizzo

KC

F

433

0

2

10

5

17

3.53

44

Kenny Cooper

SEA

F

358

2

1

12

1

14

3.52

45

Benny Feilhaber

KC

M

539

1

1

8

12

21

3.51

46

Juninho

LA

M

448

0

2

8

7

17

3.42

47

Andrew Wenger

PHI

F

528

2

0

14

6

20

3.41

48

Eric Alexander

NY

M

451

0

3

7

7

17

3.39

49

Alex

CHI

M

512

0

0

12

7

19

3.34

50

Saer Sene

NE

M

355

0

0

8

5

13

3.30

There are roughly 19 names here and I'm not going to go through them all. But key surprises are Jack McInerney, who everyone continues to think is "slumping" when he's not scoring goals. Baggio Husidic is making waves in that flashy new diamond attack in LA. Husidic is filling the hole that once upon a time existed out wide and makes the Robbie Rogers-trade look worse and worse, as he likely won't make it past a bench position upon return. Bernardo Anor has been doing a lot for Columbus out of the midfield but, perhaps, the bigger story than Anor--or even the LA trade for Rogers--is that fact that Gregg Berhalter pretty much stole Hector Jimenez who is looking brilliant in his new Crew colors.

Lastly, three other off season moves are having impacts with their new clubs.

Teal Bunbury is finally being "the other guy" and taking shots in New England. Lord knows they need to start converting those opportunities.

SalZizzo wasn't exactly a headline move this off-season, but since being let go by Portland this past off-season he's been a gold staple in the Sporting KC line-up.

Kenny Cooper is having himself a quietly productive first season in the Emerald City. Yes, it's towards the bottom of the line-up and it doesn't really mean much of anything. But he's been reliable and fits in with Clint Dempsey and Oba Martins, playing the third/fourth fiddle and doing whatever needs to happen. Great role for him and he's doing it well.

There are a lot of things to take away from this. Like why didn't I just make two tiers: IBC Rootbeer and Barqs, which is basically all you're going to go with unless there is some local brewed Root beer that you want to try for funsies. Anyways, some information here. Not necessarily good information, but at this stage of analysis and data when it comes to MLS, and really soccer in general, what is "good" information?

Editor's Note: This was the first of many articles by Jacob, who can be found at @MLSAtheist on twitter. It's quite amazing, and I encourage you to read it. He's one of several wonderful writers that we are adding to the site in the coming weeks. Please give him a follow and good feedback, as you have for Drew, Matty, and me. This is all part of putting together newer, better site content.

Not long ago, I saw a piece on ESPN handicapping the MLS MVP race, featuring the one and only Alexi Lalas. Say what you will about Lalas, but what he said on this topic got my mind jogging. The season was still a couple weeks from being complete, but the Redhead tipped Marco Di Vaio over Mike Magee for the award, based mostly on his higher goal total. He explained that goals are the rarest and most important event in soccer, so the guy who scores the most (and in the most games, giving his team a better chance to win) is the best candidate for the award. But here at American Soccer Analysis, we know that just because a guy puts the final touch on a goal doesn’t necessarily make him the most valuable component of that play, let alone that season.

Anyway, Lalas had a point: goals are important. And whether you like it or not, goal scorers and creators are always going to be the award winners in this sport. But still, looking solely at goal totals seems far too simplistic when handicapping the race for MVP. So, as we are wont to do around here, I tried to delve a little deeper.

First of all, you can contribute to goals without being the one to actually kick it into the net. I’ll do the most obvious thing possible, and just add assists to the equation. Additionally, not every player gets to play the same amount. Especially in MLS, where some of the top players are constantly called away for international duty, some MVP candidates only play in two-thirds of his team’s games. But if the premise here is that the award is intended to go to the most prolific goal creator, we should really look at how many goals they create when they’re actually on the field.

Here are the ten top MVP candidates (I know they probably aren’t all that deserving, but ten is a good round number and I’m a little OCD), and how many goals they’ve created, as well as their per 90 minute rate.

Player

Goals

Assists

G+A Per 90

M. Magee

21

4

.806

M. Di Vaio

20

2

.698

R. Keane

16

11

1.22

J. Morales

8

10

.710

Camilo

22

6

1.04

D. Valeri

10

13

.909

F. Higuain

11

9

.694

D. Fagundez

13

7

.742

T. Cahill

11

5

.642

G. Zusi

6

8

.535

It’s no surprise to see Keane and Camilo leading the way with over one per game, as they have the highest sum of goals and assists, and Keane did his work in fairly limited minutes. But again, goals and assists are a little too superficial for us here at ASA. After all, some goals are the fault of terrible defending, goalkeeping, or just some really fortunate bounces; instead it’s preferred to look at chance creation. If a player is consistently creating chances, it’s nearly inevitable that it should lead to more goals. Now rather than just the shots that actually end up in the net, we’ll run the numbers regarding shots, as well as passes that lead to shots (key passes) for the same players:

Player

Shots

Key Passes

Shots Created Per 90

M. Magee*

114

65

5.77

M. Di Vaio

89

25

3.62

R. Keane

54

53

4.86

J. Morales

33

94

5.01

Camilo

95

37

4.91

D. Valeri

55

59

4.51

F. Higuain

69

115

6.39

D. Fagundez

43

27

2.60

T. Cahill

47

19

2.65

G. Zusi

41

75

4.43

This time we’ve got a couple of different leaders, as Federico Higuain and Mike Magee take the lead thanks to their trigger-happy styles. Higuain’s incredible number of key passes, despite playing for a middling Crew team, should raise some eyebrows---the dude’s an absolutely fantastic attacker.

Still, I have an issue with just looking at shots created. After all, we know not all shots are created equal. Without looking up the shot location data of every one of the shots in the above table, I think there’s still a way to improve the statistics: add in a factor of accuracy.

For Higuain, creating over six shots a game is terrific. But from watching a lot of Columbus games, I can tell you that plenty of those shots were low percentage bombs from 30 yards out, and plenty of others were taken by other fairly inept Crew attackers. To try to factor this in, I’d like to look at how many shots on target each player creates - the ones that actually have a chance at becoming goals. While shots on goal stats for individual players are easy to find, it’s tougher to decipher when key passes lead to shots that test keepers rather than boots into the stands. To compensate, I used each player’s team percentage of shots on target to estimate how many key passes turned into shots on goal, leading to the final following table:

Player

Shots on Goal

Key Passes

Team Shot%

SoG Created Per 90

M. Magee*

50

65

48% / 51%

2.68

M. Di Vaio

56

25

54%

2.21

R. Keane

31

53

48%

2.56

J. Morales

19

94

52%

2.68

Camilo

56

37

49%

2.76

D. Valeri

31

59

49%

2.36

F. Higuain

36

115

43%

2.96

D. Fagundez

30

27

50%

1.57

T. Cahill

22

19

48%

1.25

G. Zusi

21

75

42%

2.00

There we have it. My endorsement for MVP this season, based on a combination of Alexi Lalas’ inspiration and my own twisted statistical mind, is Federico Higuain of the 16th-best team in the league, the Columbus Crew.

Just kidding, guys! Obviously the MVP debate should take more into account than who creates shots on goal. Defense, leadership, your team actually winning---all of these things should and do matter. But still, I think this was an interesting exercise and hopefully opened at least one set of eyes to how prolific Higuain is.

Finally, a few thoughts/takeaways in bullet form:

Higuain was held back by his team’s terrible shooting accuracy, but not as much as Graham Zusi. Now I understand why analytic folks like Sporting Kansas City’s chance creation so much, yet the team hasn’t always seen the results.

Diego Fagundez is incredibly selective about his shooting - almost 70% of his shots hit the target.

Javi Morales doesn’t shoot much for being so prolific at creating others shots. Reminds me of this post by Tempo Free Soccer---really interesting as far as categorizing attackers as shooters vs. providers.

*Since Magee was traded mid-season, his season total stats were harder to find. While I used Squawka for everyone else’s stats, I ended up having to tally Magee’s game-by-game stats from Who Scored. It’s possible that the two sites have different standards for what constitutes a shot or key pass, and that could’ve skewed the data for Magee. I’m not sure any of them look too far out of whack that I’m too suspicious, but it’s possible so I thought it should be noted.

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